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down each other. Fatal error, to think they can intimidate the capitalists,
who are mostly men of courage and superior to the masses, and as
sincere in their opinions as to their rights to the property they control.
Then, the rebels will be in small bodies and unable to concentrate, for
the authorities will hold the depots and use trains, if they are run at all,
to concentrate troops at given points, which the rebels will be unable to
reach. This will afford the capitalists an excuse for a strong government,
and progress will be retarded. The net gain will be money in the pockets
of manufacturers of guns and other war munitions, and a strong
government, with loss incalculable to the workers, who will lose some of the
liberty they now have, and have to pay the cost of the war. If I could
control the men in all these labor organizations, I could, without even
lifting a toothpick other than to write with it, in a perfectly quiet way,
bring capital to its knees ; or, if I thought it just and wise, force
proprietors to sell their property at cost, or less. A resort to arms is suicidal
to the side that initiates it. Moral force once clearly perceived as a social
principle will be found to yield inexhaustible working power to defend
natural rights. The simplicity of the thing is so apparent when you
once strike a true lead that all brute force would cease. What a glorious
chance the Irish had to rid themselves of landlords and politicians! Had
the no-rent policy been adhered to one year, the landlords would have
been beggared. The price of land would have been discovered to have
its only basis in monopoly, seizure, legal title. One such success would
have opened the eyes of all civilized men to the weakness of brute force
in a contest with moral force, and would have shown the ease with which
governments could be rendered powerless. What a fraud and shadow
they are, terrible only to childish men! If there were a God, he would
never forgive Parnell and the priests for furling the no-rent banner. If
we could get but one such illustration of passive resistance on a large
scale, Anarchy would be an accomplished fact.

I can add nothing to these wise words, nor can I make
plainer their valuable lesson.

Leaving now our consideration of the actual throwing of the
bomb, surrounding which, as I said, there is some doubt, let us
glance a moment at what has happened since, regarding which
there can be no doubt. The conduct during the last fortnight
of the police, the courts, the pulpit, and the press, including
many of the labor organs themselves, has been shameful in the
extreme. Mammon's priests have foamed at the mouth; the
servants of Plutus who sit in editorial chairs have frothed at
the point of the pen; the stalwart graduates of the slums who
are licensed and paid to swing shillalahs over the heads of
unoffending citizens have shrieked for vengeance; and wearers
of judicial ermine on which there is room for no new spots
have virtually declared their determination to know no bounds
of right, mercy, or decency in dealing with any Anarchist who
may be brought before them. Spies and Fielden have been
arrested and held for murder, though they are not known to
have done anything worse than to speak their minds; nearly
every one in Chicago who has dared to avow himself an